Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Peach Aviation grows Okinawa; Narita and more Taipei.

On December 8th, Peach Aviation [MM/APJ] announced that it will launch Okinawa/Naha [OKA/ROAH] – Tokyo/Narita [NRT/RJAA] on February 20th, 2016. The new link will initially be operated three times per week, increasing to daily from the Summer 2016 timetable effective March 27th, using 180-seat Airbus A320-200s. The growing LCC will also expand Naha – Taipei/Taoyuan [TPE/RCTP] service from daily to 10 weekly from February 19th, and to twice daily from the Summer 2016 schedule.

Airbus
A320-214 JA809P along with two others prepare for their next assignment
at Kansai Airport's Terminal 2. Peach currently flies 17 A320s with the
18th due in March 2016. (Photo: Ryosuke Yano)

One-way fares for Naha – Narita start from 5,890 JPY for a Happy Peach ticket, which includes a 10-kilogram carry-on baggage allowance, and for Naha – Taipei/Taoyuan from 4,780 JPY. Tickets went on sale today. Both new round-trips are timed in the evening.

Narita – Naha is also served by All Nippon Airways [NH/ANA], mostly catering to international – domestic connections, along with Jetstar Japan [GK/JJP] and Peach's sister Vanilla Air [JW/VNL], making it the second route after Narita – New Chitose to see three LCCs competing. That said, ANA Holdings' two sister LCCs will initially avoid direct competition, as Vanilla's flight is in the morning while Peach's is in the evening, unlike with Narita – New Chitose. ANA has always considered consolidating the two as their network overlap becomes inevitable, however, while Vanilla is wholly-owned by ANA, it only holds a minority (though still significant) 39% stake in Peach and its CEO Shinichi Inoue has repeatedly shown preference to grow organically, making any merger out of question at least in the near term.